Chapter 3
He sounded tired, Willa thought, and he certainly didn’t need the added burden of the wounded man when he already had the weighty responsibility of keeping his wife and sister safe all while figuring out how to take back their family’s lands from a murderous tyrant.
But neither did he leave the man to die, and for that she was grateful.
Though she’d known her brother only a short time, she’d recognized at once that he was a good man.
A strong man. He’d been through more than she knew, as the denounced bastard son of her father.
It could not have been an easy life, and he’d likely fought for everything he had.
Though it had hardened him, James had somehow held on to his kind heart, and his ability to trust and love.
Together, the three of them managed to move the warrior to the cottage and into one of the two small bedrooms. Since the other room was for James and Maura, Willa supposed she would have a roommate for awhile.
She would make a pallet on the floor, and that way she could keep watch over him at night.
She knew from experience that he would almost certainly develop a fever, and would need constant care if he was to live.
While James went to unload the wagon and see to the horses, the two women set about tending their charge.
With her hands on her hips, Maura appraised the man lying as still as death on the small bed.
“We’ll have to cut his clothes off”, she said.
“They’re beyond saving anyway. Then we’ll wash the wound, and ye’ll wash the rest of him while I sew it closed.
He has so much blood all over him… ye’ll need the large basin in the back of the wagon.
Go… and fetch my bag too, I have a needle and thread and a sharp knife in there. ”
Willa swiftly returned with the bag and went back for the water, and Maura set to work cutting off the man’s clothing.
Willa came in and set the basin on the table nest the bed, then stood beside Maura, watching with her heart in her throat as she worked.
First the shirt came away, stiff and sticky with drying blood, and the coppery tang of it filled their noses.
The plaid he wore slung low on his hips was soaked as well, but they were able to unfasten the belt and pull away the material.
Willa bent to pull off his boots, and then he lay completely naked on the bed.
Willa let her eyes roam the length of his body, and she let out an appreciative breath.
Maura looked up at her with a wicked half-smile teasing her lips.
“No’ bad, aye?”
No, not bad at all. Even with the thick coating of blood and grime, he was nothing short of magnificent.
The wide planes of his impossibly well-muscled chest (interrupted by the gash in his side, still caked with drying blood), led down to a taught but equally muscled stomach, and then to long, powerful legs.
Her gaze travelled down the length of him once more before unconsciously stopping at the juncture of his thighs and staring with pure fascination.
Her interest was not lost on Maura, who quirked an eyebrow at her sister-in-law.
“Hung like a stallion, too.” She said teasingly as she took up a damp rag and began to carefully dab at the wound. “Perhaps ye’ll decide to keep him around, should he live.”
Willa was fairly certain that she blushed to her toes; Maura was not one to hold back words. But she was saved when James came in with a pot of warm water, some soap and clean rags, and a small bottle of whiskey.
“The best I could do on short notice, ladies.” He put the things down on a little table, and lit two more lamps, bringing them closer so they would have better light to work by. “Need anything else?”
Maura shook her head. “No, go and get yer work done, we’ll be awhile.”
“All right”, he leaned in to kiss his wife tenderly on the mouth. “I’ll make us all some dinner, then.”
When Maura smiled up at him, Willa could see the light in her eyes that she knew without a doubt was love.
James glowed with the same light when he looked at his wife.
How rare and wonderful such a thing was.
Seeing it in such full force left her with a hollow ache inside, and she couldn’t help but wish for someone to give her own love to so completely.
Sighing softly, she reached for a rag and dipped it in the water to begin washing the blood and dirt off the warrior’s golden skin.
Maura watched James go, then turned back to the job at hand. “Och, and he cooks, too! How did I get so lucky?” She removed the last of the blood away and leaned closer to inspect the gash. She sucked in a breath and Willa looked up from where she was rinsing her cloth.
“God it’s deep! I can nearly see the bone. No… I can see the bone. Hand me the whiskey, would ye? I need to clean it first, though all of the bleeding has done a fairly good job of it.”
Willa uncorked the bottle, handed it across the bed, and Maura poured it into the open wound. The man immediately stiffened and a low, pained moan came from deep in his throat. Willa winced in sympathy.
“Well”, Maura said matter-of-factly, “We ken he’s still alive.”
She took up the needle and thread Willa had prepared, and began making neat even stitches to close the flesh.
Droplets of blood oozed out between the threads, but Willa was relieved to see it did not bleed as it had before.
She turned back to her gentle ministrations, wiping blood and dirt from his skin and rinsing the rag repeatedly.
He had a tattoo on his upper arm and chest, and when she had cleaned the area, she saw that it was a dragon.
A stunning work of art, stark black on his bronzed skin.
She lightly traced the design with her fingertips. Interesting.
She had to change the water in the bowl three times, but once he was cleaned up, she stood back for a moment to admire him.
What a strikingly handsome man he was, with his chiseled jaw and cheekbones, and his wavy brown locks of hair.
His long dark lashes swept down above his cheeks, leaving her to wonder what color his eyes were.
And she wondered who had hurt him and left him to die.
Even gravely wounded and unconscious, he had a vitality about him, with his smooth golden skin stretched tight over thick muscle.
And his manhood… she hadn’t seen all that many naked men before, but certainly Maura had because she had worked for a time with a healer, and she had compared him to a stallion.
She felt herself flush, and an unfamiliar rush of heat gathered between her legs.
Her heart picked up its pace, and she drew in a little breath.
Pure, raw attraction… oh yes! This was what she’d been missing, what she had been waiting for so long to feel for someone. But now?
She looked down at the man lying in her bed. Oh, you had better live Warrior, because I need to kiss you. I want to know what it feels like when I do…
When they were finished and the man had fresh bandages and clean blankets, Willa used a clean cloth to drip water between his slightly parted lips. She smiled when he swallowed it without her help, and gave him a little more.
“That’s it Warrior, you need to drink.”
Maura called to her from the doorway. “Come and have some supper, Willa.”
She put down her cup and rag reluctantly, pulling up the blanket and tucking it around the man’s shoulders before she went to take her seat at the little table before the fire.
Darkness had fallen while they had worked, and now she suddenly felt tired, more tired than she had been in a very long time.
She realized she had been running on fear for days, if not longer, and now…
she finally felt safe. And if she didn’t let herself think about the future, she could relax a little. At least for tonight.
James looked at her and gave a small laugh. “Yer falling asleep in yer chair, little sister. Finish yer food, then off to bed wi’ ye. The two of ye can take the other room, and I’ll sleep here by the fire.”
Willa straightened, suddenly alert. “Over my dead body James! You and your new bride will take that room. I’m going to sleep on a pallet in the other.”
His smile fell away. “Wi’ that man in there? I dinna think so.”
“Of course… that way I can watch him during the night. Though I don’t think he’ll be waking up any time soon.” She threw her gaze to Maura, and a kind of understanding dawned in the other woman’s eyes.
“Aye, James, let her sleep in there with the man. We’ll be only paces away… and I miss ye”, she said with a saucy tilt of her lips.
Willa saw her brother’s nostrils flare and his eyes darken as he looked at his wife, and she quickly excused herself for bed, hiding her smile.
She turned at the door to give Maura a conspiratorial wink.
Shutting the door behind her, she went to the bed and kneeled down beside the unconscious man.
In the soft yellow candlelight, the deathly pallor of his skin was replaced with the golden glow that she imagined was his natural color, and she was struck anew by his hard, masculine beauty.
The longer she looked, the more she could not help herself…
she had to touch him. Besides, Maura said that touch was healing, and he was definitely in need of some healing.
Lowering the blanket just a little, she ran her hand up the powerful muscles of his arm, and across the solid planes of his chest, skirting the wound down the length of his left side.
The soft smoothness of his skin over all that hardness felt good beneath her fingertips.
If he lived, he would have a deep scar, much larger than the many smaller lines and ridges scattered over his body.
The man had seen many battles. Again she wondered at how he had come to be alone up in the mountains, left for dead.
Already, in her mind at least, he could not have done anything to deserve to die like that.
She leaned over and gave him a soft kiss on the forehead, then smiled. “I don’t know who you are or what kind of man, but as long as you’re asleep in my bed, you belong to me.”
She thought his next breath was just a little deeper, but perhaps it was only her hopeful imagination. In her short lifetime, she had seen many men die, but somehow she wanted more than anything for this one to live.